Shop Closed, Shuk Stall Owner Hasn’t Yelled At Customers In Weeks

“I need to be screaming insults at customers, especially tourists, at least twenty minutes a day.”

Jerusalem, May 5 – The proprietor of a spice, nut, and seed establishment at this city’s main open-air market voiced his continued frustration today at lockdown measures that make operating his business impracticable and financially pointless, noting in particular that he has had not a single opportunity to berate, scold, or otherwise raise his voice at visitors to his establishment since before Passover.

Yosef Levi, 54, told reporters Tuesday that he has experienced elevated stress levels and other psychological ill effects from deprivation of the opportunity to yell at people who come into his shop at the Mahane Yehuda market. “It’s been almost two months,” he grimaced. “I’ve been taking out my frustrations on my family, and it’s not healthy. I need to be screaming insults at customers, especially tourists, at least twenty minutes a day overall, or my stress hormones go haywire. But there aren’t enough people at the shuk for it to be worth opening my stall and dealing with the hassle.”

Social distancing and other coronavirus containment policies on a national and local level have meat that many vendors at Mahane Yehuda refrain from opening their shops, even as others maintain a semblance of routine, mostly through delivery orders. Only some business in the shuk can operate even short-term following such a model; apparel stores, housewares establishments, and some produce vendors, among others, remain unable to operate. The consequent loss of revenue has numerous deleterious economic effects, but for Mr. Levi the problem is compounded by the lack of berating people who ask for products he does not carry; who state they intend to use what he sells for purposes other than what he deems appropriate; or who take too long telling him what they seek.

Analysts noted that Mr. Levi belongs to the older school of Israeli retail sensibilities, according to which a vendor does the customer a favor by running his business, and does not, as contemporary capitalist assumptions posit, need to show concern that said customer might choose a different establishment to patronize. “In the early days of the State of Israel there weren’t multiple options,” explained economist Tzena Auster. “Some proprietors have struggled to adapt their attitude as the country and society have become more prosperous, and competition remains an alien concept to them. Dismissing or taking customers for granted goes hand in hand with that. One of the unfortunate outcomes of the current pandemic will probably be that the last of the to-hell-with-the-customer proprietors will fold, and Israeli culture will end that poorer for it.”

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